Final post for the 2022 list, and a long one too
Murchison falls
Our first Murchison Falls activity was a cruise on the Nile towards the delta of Lake Albert. This area is supposedly good for birds, and people even regularly see shoebills here. We had no such luck, but this boat tour was probably my favorite activity in Murchison Falls. As most people tend to choose for only the boat cruise towards Murchison falls here, we had the boat completely for ourselves. Our guide (whose name I’ve forgotten) was very knowledgeable and very enthusiastic about birds. Lots of new species here for me. We would mostly be closest to the wildlife-rich north bank of the Nile, but the guide suggested to crossed the Nile to look for giant kingfisher and he told me he might also have another surprise for me on the south bank. 5 minutes later we were looking at two rarely seen white-backed night herons. We had a very close sighting of these awesome, ancient looking but also shy birds. The giant kingfisher was also spotted here. The rest of the trip was also very pleasant, with a constant trickle of new birds and also some more common mammals (hippos, waterbuck, kob etc) so overall this was a fantastic trip, and I found it much nicer than the boat tour to the waterfall the next day. In the afternoon, we had a game drive that was slightly less good for birds, but still very enjoyable. Some of the ‘standard suspects’ of the mammals in Murchison were new for me. Oribi and Jacksons hartebeest are everywhere here, but I was especially delighted by the patas monkeys and the striped ground squirrels we got very good sightings of. We also saw lions again, but decidedly less well than in Queen Elizabeth. And believe it or not: we found another beautiful leopard closely in a tree! Sam called us a bunch of lucky bastards: this was already the fourth (!) leopard we saw and he said that in his 20-30 years of guiding he had never guided a group who saw that many leopards!
The morning game drive the next day was mostly more of the same, but of course there were some new birds and we also saw our only spotted hyena in Uganda dashing away in the tall grass. I saw hyena’s before in South Africa, but the side-striped jackals Sam found for us were new for me. They were rather distant, but I got good views through my binoculars and it was a treat to see young jackals as well. After lunch, the boat tour to the Murchison Falls themselves was scheduled. I must say that I was not very impressed by the view of the falls from the boat, we had seen them much better from the land-based viewing point on our travel day from Kibale. But otherwise, the boat tour was nice again, but the focus here was more on large mammals as we were on a rather large boat that could not come close enough to the shore to be able to spot a lot of the smaller birds. Lots of elephants and other common mammals though (but not as much as on the Kazinga Channel in Queen Elizabeth). The best moment of this tour was when all the tourists (including my family) were busy taking pics of the falls that were 400 meters away while I had spotted some very interesting birds on a rock island slightly closer to the boat: rock pratincoles! Such cool little critters, they remind me of the inca terns we are all familiar with in European zoos, even though they are not really related.
Birds
201. African grey hornbill (Lophoceros nasutus)
202. Osprey (Pandion haliaetus)
203. Banded-necked eagle (Circaetus cinerascens)
204. Moui dove
205. Woolly-necked stork (Ciconia episcopus)
206. Green-backed heron (Butorides striata)
207. Broad-billed roller (Eurystomus glaucurus)
208. Grey-headed kingfisher (Halcyon leucocephala)
209. Giant kingfisher (Megaceryle maxima)
210. Saddle-billed stork (Ephippiorhynchus senegalensis)
211. White-backed night heron (Gorsachius leuconotus)
212. Red-throated bee-eater (Merops bulocki)
213. African harrier hawk (Polyboroides typus)
214. Black-crowned tchagra (Tchagra senegalus)
215. White bellied bustard (Eupodotis senegalensis)
216. Denhams bustard (Neotis denhami)
217. Black-billed wood dove (Turtur abyssinicus)
218. Piapiac (Ptilostomus afer)
219. Abyssinian ground hornbill (Bucorvus abyssinicus)
220. Silverbird (Empidornis semipartitus)
221. Northern red bishop (Euplectes franciscanus)
222. Rock pratincole (Glareola nuchalis)
223. Spotted thick-knee (Burhinus capensis)
224. White-faced whistling duck (Dendrocygna viduata)
225. Wire-tailed swallow (Hirundo smithii)
Mammals
42. Striped ground squirrel (Euxerus erythropus)
43. Patas monkey (Erythrocebus patas)
44. Jacksons hartebeest (Alcelaphus buselaphus lelwel)
45. Oribi (Ourebia ourebi)
46. Side-striped jackal (Lupulella adusta)
47. Spotted hyena (Crocuta Crocuta)
Kidepo
From Murchison falls, we drove all the way to the northernmost part of Uganda, to the rarely visited Kidepo national park. We had a little (well, that’s what Sam called it) rain on our way, and more of the roads turned into rivers the closer we got to Kidepo. Good thing Sam’s a skilled driver… I loved the view at Kidepo Savannah lodge, but obviously they were not really used to these amounts of rain as our safari tents were completely flooded when we arrived, but we could cope with that: I was more worried about our game drives, especially as the staff told us it had been raining like that for a week at that point. I should not have worried, as the next morning the skies were clear and we could take off. Again, Sam arranged for a local ranger to accompany us during our safaris. The ranger we got was called Gilbert, and he was probably the best one we had in terms of birding knowledge. Especially on our first game drive, I almost couldn’t keep up with all the species names he was firing at me. Needless to say, I was a happy man. I was thrilled to see Clapperton’s francolin as they only occur here in Uganda and according to eBird the only other practical place to see them would be in Ethiopia. Another highlight were the rose-ringed parakeets that are introduced all over the world but in Kidepo they occur naturally. On the mammal front Kidepo has some a very distinct species composition when compared with most of Uganda, Zebra, eland, rock hyrax, bohor reedbuck are not easily seen in most other Ugandan national parks. We also saw 2 white-eared kob (a distinct-looking kob subspecies), of which Gilbert told us they were the only 2 in the park. Side-striped jackal were delightfully common and we also saw black-backed jackals. On our second day, we looked a lot for lions, as my parents really wanted to see them again, but this was to no avail. However, after we dropped of Gilbert at the end of our final game drive at the rangers’ headquarters, Sam decided that he would not that easily be beaten and he made a little detour to a small (currently unattended) wild=camping site inside the park where he had seen lions often before. And in the fading light, there it was: a magnificent male lion, lying inside one of the small half-open camping bandas! A pretty surreal sight really: imagine being a camper and coming back to your camping spot and find a huge male lion inside your banda… But it got better than that: After the sun had fully gone down, it stood up and started to roar. To our surprise, we heard another lion respond to this from quite far away. ‘Our’ lion responded to that again and the two then started to take turns roaring, while we could hear the distant lion louder and louder as he got closer and closer. An absolutely magical display, it really gave me goosebumps all over. Eventually, the roaring got to a boiling point as the approaching lion stepped out of the darkness. He turned out to be another splendid fully-maned male. The two lions shortly looked at each other and then walked into the darkness together. We could not follow them without spotlight but I did not mind at all: a stunning end to our last game drive
Birds
226. Yellow bishop (Euplectes capensis)
227. Scarlet-chested sunbird (Chalcomitra senegalensis)
228. Common quail (Coturnix coturnix)
229. Pin-tailed whydah (Vidua macroura)
230. Brown snake eagle (Circaetus cinereus)
231. Rose-ringed parakeet (Psittacula krameria)
232. Moustached grass-warbler (Melocichla mentalis)
232. White bellied go away bird (Crinifer leucogaster
233. Lesser blue-eared starling (Lamprotornis chloropterus)
234. Abyssinian roller (Coracias abyssinicus)
235. Rufous-naped lark (Mirafra africana)
236. Clappertons francolin (Pternistis clappertoni)
237. Northern white-crowned shrike (Eurocephalus ruppelli)
238. Martial eagle (Polemaetus bellicosus)
239. Yellow-billed shrike (Corvinella corvina)
240. Suberb starling (Lamprotornis superbus)
241. Black coucal (Centropus grillii)
242. White-necked raven (Corvus albicollis)
243. Croaking cisticola (Cisticola natalensis)
244. Jacksons hornbill (Tockus jacksoni)
245. Cardinal quelea (Quelea cardinalis)
246. Black-winged kite (Elanus axillaris)
247. Lappet-faced vulture (Torgos tracheliotos)
248. Flappet lark (Mirafra rufocinnamomea)
249. Vinaceous dove (Streptopelia vinacea)
250. Speckled pigeon (Columba guinea)
251. Village indigobird (Vidua chalybeate)
252. Sooty chat (Myrmecocichla nigra)
253. Namaqua dove (Oena capensis)
254. Acacia paradise whydah (Vidua paradisaea)
255. Steppe eagle (Aquila nipalensis)
256. White headed buffalo weaver (Dinemellia dinemelli)
Mammals
48. Rock hyrax (Procavia capensis)
49. Bohor reedbuck (Redunca redunca)
50. Eland (Taurotragus oryx)
(50+1. White-eared kob (Kobus kob leucotis). Not a full species so I’m not counting it. However, the male looks very distinct from Uganda kobs)
51. Black-backed jackal (Lupulella mesomelas)
Mount moroto
We did a short walk here up Mount Moroto to a nice viewpoint. It was mostly a cultural activity really (very interesting though) as we passed through a couple of local villages but we also saw this fantastic bird.
257. White-crested turaco (Tauraco leucolophus)
Sipi Falls
Reptiles
5. Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) (not actually fromSipi Falls but just forgot to add it before)
6. Three-horned chameleon (Trioceros jacksonii)
Jinja
In Jinja we had originally planned a boat tour on the Nile looking for birds but we ended up not doing this as we all got very sick. My brother and I had been on a rafting trip where we got lunch and we got severe food poisoning. My parents also got sick but much later so probably the lunch at the rafting was the problem and we just infected them with whatever pathogen was in the lunch. Still, I managed to see a couple of birds on the lodge grounds and I also saw a cape clawless otter during the rafting trip.
Birds
258. Klaas’ cuckoo (Chrysococcyx klaas)
259. Red-cheeked cordon-bleu (Uraeginthus bengalus)
260. Collared sunbird (Hedydipna collaris)
Mammals
52. Cape clawless otter (Aonyx capensis)
Entebbe
We did a short visit to the Botanical gardens as we all felt better on the last day, but no one felt like going early and it was very hot that day so the amount of new birds was quite limited. But I was especially delighted to get much better sightings and photos of great blue turaco and black and white casqued hornbills than we had at Kibale so I was happy we went anyway.
261. Yellow-billed kite (Milvus aegyptius)
261. White-throated bee-eater (Merops albicollis)
262. Bronze mannikin (Spermestes cucullata)
So that concludes my Uganda list. 42 species of mammals and 182 species of bird (including some Europe duplicates). Especially the bird count may not much by dedicated wildlife watching trip standards, but this was mostly a family holiday where the focus was mostly on enjoying the holiday instead of seeing as much animals as possible and I'm still developing my birding skills so I am quite happy with these numbers. And the encounter with shoebills, gorillas, leopards and chimpanzees were very, very special!
Netherlands
The Dutch birds from the last months of the year. Mostly seen on a field work trip to Terschelling and in the Ooijpolder near Nijmegen. The highlights are definitely the white tailed eagle and the for the Netherlands not-so-common loon (which I believe is still around at the Mookerplas in Limburg for anyone that wants to see it).
263. Common snipe (Gallinago gallinago)
264. Western marsh harrier (Circus aeruginosus)
265. Green sandpiper (Tringa ochropus)
266. Wood sandpiper (Tringa glareola)
267. White-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla)
268. Eurasian hobby (Falco Subbuteo)
269. Dunlin (Calidris alpina
270. Northern wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe)
271. Sanderling (Calidris alba)
272. European golden plover (Pluvialis apricaria)
273. Snow bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis)
274. European wigeon (Mareca Penelope)
275. Red knot (Calidris canutus)
276. Spotted redshank (Tringa erythropus)
277. Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris)
278. Goldcrest (Regulus regulus)
279. Common goldeneye (Bucephala clangula)
280. Common merganser (Mergus merganser)
281. Tundra bean goose (Answer serrirostris)
282. Common kingfisher (Alcedo atthis)
283. Hen harrier (Cirus cyaneus)
284. Eurasian sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus)
285. Northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis)
286. Water pipit (Anthus spinoletta)
287. Smew (Mergullus albellus)
288. Middle spotted woodpecker (Dendrocoptes medius)
289. Redwing (Turdus iliacus)
290. Common loon (Gavia immer)
Italy
I had no time to go birding on this skiing vacation, but to miss alpine chough and Italian sparrow you really have to walk (or ski) with your eyes closed. The rook was spotted sitting on a fence next to the Swiss highway on the way back.
291. Alpine chough (Pyrhhocorax graculus)
292. Italian sparrow (Passer italiae)
293. Rook (Corvus frugilegus)
